My Perfect Enemy
by KShade
Summary: The battle is done. Neferet is not dead, but she is unconscious. Kalona is charged with watching her until she wakes. When she wakes with no recollection of who she is, what she's done, or why she turned to Darkness, can she discover a better side to the world, or will her slowly-returning memories force her back to the life she knows, or Darkness and pain?
1. Chapter 1

**Neferet and Kalona have no fanfics together. No story where they're the focus and together. Here I am remedying it. Consider yourselves warned. And my story "Deserved" was going this way, but I just sort of lost my idea for that. I know, I'm all over the place, and I need to pick one story and finish it. So here we are now. This is set after Redeemed as I assume it'll play out. **

**It really doesn't matter what happened with the circle, because this is isn't focused on any of them, but they lived. There was probably one casualty to "hit close to home" but I'll decide who that was later. Neferet is not killed in this epic final battle, but she is in a quasi-shattered state. Kalona, for his efforts, is forgiven by Nyx. We'll say, for this story, he's her warrior again. Thanatos prefers not to have a warrior anyways, death always was solitary. Zoey has been forgiven, but Nyx has claimed the seeing stone. And Shaylin will have relevance to this, and she's still with Nicole, because I ship them. **

"_I'm sure of your ability to become my perfect enemy"  
-Passive, A Perfect Circle_

There was a bang and a flash of light, and Kalona saw a single figure emerge from the smoke. He was so torn by who he wanted it to be, he almost wanted to close his eyes and never know, though that would be childish. He had to keep his eyes and mind open, and display no emotion either way.

Zoey was A-ya, and the chosen one of his Goddess, and the part of him that Nyx had taken back, that had become her warrior, that part of him wanted to see her emerge victorious. But Kalona was divided. The rest of him wanted Neferet to stand victorious, soot staining those high cheekbones defiantly, as her auburn hair glowed like flame in the silver light of the moon. He wanted to see the darkness in emerald eyes, and the defiance in her. He wanted his enemy and the woman who'd freed him, loved him (in one sense of the word anyways). He wanted her to prove that not childish chosen one could stop her, that she was the goddess she called herself.

As the smoke settled, he could discern better the outline of the girl in the smoke but a part of him prayed to be wrong. It wasn't Neferet's fault. It was…whoever started her on that path, not that he knew quit who to blame for that. It wasn't him. She was already dark when they met. The smoke settled further, and he could already make out her dark hair, and the joy in those hazel eyes. The marks of the favour of her goddess_, constantly the favourite, _he thought slightly bitterly. He heard the cheers of her friends, and he felt nothing. He watched the girl fall into her lover's embrace, and he felt nothing. He watched Zoey's friends crowd around her, congratulatory, and he heard the voice of his goddess, but not the words. He still felt nothing, but a little feeling like something torn, something missing. He was cut off from their joy. They whooped and cheered, and he just felt empty, not happy nor saddened, just empty.

The smoke had cleared. There was a crater in the ground, and Neferet lay there, peaceful and undisturbed as she would if she was sleeping. Her auburn hair formed a bloody halo around her head, the eyes that could cut him down to size were closed, and he was glad. He couldn't see them empty. There was just one mark left to mar her, a sliver mark like the seeing stone, like a silvery mark between her collarbones_. But she couldn't be dead, could she?_

It alarmed him that he didn't want her to be. Would his treasonous mind already betray him, already choose against his goddess? Finally, the voice of his brother cut through the haze, through the emotion or lack thereof, or whatever this feeling was that had settled him his chest like a crushing weight. "She's not dead," said Erebus disappointedly. Kalona recognised some relief. "Well, all those efforts and she's not even dead," he complained, the excited fledglings not even hearing. Kalona heard though, and Kalona cared. Part of the weight was taken off at those words, knowing that it wasn't even permanent.

Nyx sounded more pensive as her serene voice cut through Kalona's relief. "Then perhaps she still has a chance," Nyx said softly, "what say you, Kalona? You knew her better than I, her goddess did." Nyx didn't ask it rudely, or as a slight, she merely said the words as an option, giving him the choice, as she gave all of her people free will. Why would he speak for Neferet though? He was the only one who didn't have an objective view of her.

Kalona should want Neferet dead. He wasn't on her side anymore, he was Nyx's warrior, but he couldn't make the word. He knew he should, she'd enslaved his soul and his children had been her servants. She would have killed him without a thought. But he knew there was a reason. He'd never quite seen it, but he could feel something in her, some wound that she was always trying to dam. She was trying to protect herself. All this happened because she needed power, because the world had taught her that when she didn't have it, it would break her. But what if someone could heal that wound, and show her that this world didn't have to destroy? "I think that we owe it to her to try."

Erebus's protests showed him that he'd revealed too much. A simple "let her live" could have sufficed. "We owe her nothing," Erebus argued. "How many of our people has she killed? How many times has she vowed her revenge, tried even to enter our realm? She freed you, and even went so far as to consort with the White Bull, and called herself a goddess. For any one of these sacrilegious acts, she really should be-"

"Allowed a chance to explain before her goddess," Nyx interrupted her consort. Kalona sighed in relief. He wouldn't be able to take that, seeing her dead after all she fought for, and particularly not at the decision of his brother, who'd be doing it to hurt him, as Erebus always did. But it wasn't supposed to work, not now. He wasn't supposed to see Neferet as any more that a fallen enemy. He understood Nyx being hesitant to do anything too harsh because this was her High Priestess, but he wasn't supposed to care one way or the other. Was it because she saved him, or was it because he knew there was a reason, a wound that couldn't heal, something even time was loathe to erase?

Erebus liked frustrated as he tried to reason with Nyx, and Kalona flew down to her, newly white wings catching the moon as he descended. Gently, almost with a hint of reverence for the fallen goddess—oh, that was irreverent of him to see her as such—he lifted her into his arms, feeling that she was cold, but there was still a slow, steady heartbeat in her chest. He heard a sigh part her lips as he took to the sky, her lithe body posing no burden to his immortal strength. He used to fly with her. She liked the wind in her hair, the feeling of being a goddess that it gave her. He liked the way her eyes lit up when she was happy, the way the shadows that lurked in her emerald eyes were almost banished in some of their moments together.

"Who would we charge with watching her until she rises?" Erebus mused, looking to Nyx to confirm that she had the same thought as he did, as Kalona gently straightened her emerald dress, which had hiked up at the bottom from his arm being beneath her. He knew she would object to this, to coming to the otherworld of the goddess she was forever hopelessly pitted against. She'd even object to being in his arms right now, like she was a wounded bird and not the immortal Tsi Sgili Queen.

"Who but the one who took the last of her goodness?" asked Erebus maliciously, looking to Kalona, "as one final penance?" he asked almost mockingly. As a penance. Erebus thought Kalona would be loathe to do it, after she'd enslaved his soul. Erebus would be, but Erebus saw things in black and white, good and evil, and he would always see Kalona on the latter side. He probably saw Neferet as just another great evil, where Kalona was one that could never quite cross into good. To Erebus, her reasons would never matter, but to Nyx… Nyx would look at the full picture.

Nyx shook her head at Erebus' last statement. "Not as a penance, but as a choice. Because he understands her, what to do when she wakes, and he knows that she would be in the right hands. What say you, Kalona? Can we entrust Neferet to you?" she asked, more asking him if he could see through the vengeant thoughts that everyone assumed he was fighting. They had yet to even surface.

He felt something rise in his chest, some odd sense of joy, or something to that effect. It should be from Nyx's favour, but he suspected it was from the knowledge that Neferet could live, that he would be the one to give her a second chance. The word slipped past his lips almost unbidden, "yes."


	2. Chapter 2

The otherworld had changed. Kalona was carrying Neferet through it, and yeah, it was still beautiful, but it wasn't as entrancing, as perfect as he remembered it being. He was certain it had been different when he was last there. The grass had been greener, that was it. And the roses in Nyx's rose garden were paler, and the night sky, well, that was about the same, but the stars weren't as bright. Maybe it was just that he knew this time he couldn't fail, or there would be absolutely no return.

Nyx showed him to a little cottage that he was certain she'd built since he fell, not that it was a surprise, given how long he'd been gone. There was one bed, and something that looked similar enough to the tables you put someone on in the hospital. Neferet would hate waking up on one of those. "Your task, Kalona, is only to guard her until she wakes, and then ring her to me so I can ascertain where to go from there." She told him, and he nodded in compliance.

"So mote it be," he spoke carefully, not wanting to sound as though he wanted anything more or less than the will of the goddess ,who thanked him before leaving. Kalona immediately moved Neferet to the bed, knowing that she'd hate lying in that gurney, and that she'd feel stiff from lying on the hard surface, Not that he was to care for the Tsi Sgili's comfort, but perhaps she'd be more inclined to help them if he did these little things. Who would know but the goddess, and she could see Kalona's reasoning in his head.

Neferet looked so eerie, so still. He'd seen her sleep before, but the Tsi Sgili had moved then. Sometimes she'd kicked and flailed, as though being attacked (and, naturally, denied everything the next morning) other times she'd just moved gently, stirred a little, moved closer (or farther) from his chill and then resumed her sleeping. She'd never been deathly still. Kalona didn't know how to fill the time until she woke 9because he refused to believe that this was a fool's errand and she wouldn't wake). He decided, maybe he'd talk, fill the silence.

He looked at the unconscious Neferet. "Why did you need it, Neferet? Why couldn't you have settled for ruling one House of Night, with me, or even just Capri. Why was nothing good enough?" he asked, starting to pace. "And why Zoey? Why did you need the child dead? She was never a legitimate threat, she was so scattered. It would have taken forever for her to do something about us, and we could never have been defeated by her. An immortal and the Tsi Sgili, and that still wasn't enough. And now look at us, I'm back where I started, and I suppose you are too, in a place of no power." His words rung out eerily, as he remembered how, sometimes she'd cringed away from him, if he accidentally said the wrong word.

He rested a hand on one ivory shoulder, feeling that she was cold. She was cold, colder than he was, though he was fairly certain he was warmer now that he wasn't fallen. He only became cold because of… well, some aspect of the Earth. Neferet was colder than he had been when he was fallen, he was sure. What was she right now: dead, shattered, comatose, a Tsi Sgili Queen, a vampyre, something else entirely?

Was Neferet the cost of his redemption? The question sprang unbidden to his mind. He knew that he should wish she was dead. In the end, he'd been little more than a slave to her, to await her in her bed and serve little purpose other than her orders, for her quest to become a goddess, or for…well, whatever else she'd wanted. It wasn't like he could protest, not while she owned his soul. And she'd enjoyed many things, pain, debasement. Really, he should be happy that she was unconscious, or dead, or whatever state she was in. And here he was, just searching answers. He was supposed to watch her, not to care one way or the other.

When had Kalona ever been able to do as he was supposed to? His treasonous heart always got in the way, or his will, or some part of who he was. He draped the blanket over Neferet, stroking the hair out of her eyes, and hoping she would open them. He loved her, he hated her. She'd freed him and trapped him. She'd saved him and doomed him. And somewhere in the paradoxes, his sanity had gotten entwined enough that it couldn't even try to make him hear it. He had fallen victim to whatever madness this was, seeing the Tsi Sgili as anything but an enemy. She was a his perfect enemy, his tainted lover, and he didn't know which of those he was seeing anymore. "Revile me," he dared her unconscious form, "Cast me aside, tell me that I'm weak and you have no need of me, make me hate you, please, just do something. Wake up and face me."

She didn't even give him a twitch to restore his face, and he knew his words and thoughts were getting borderline sacrilegious. Typical Neferet, she wouldn't even throw him a bone when this was picking him dry. Not that he was supposed to be feeling a thing. Erebus wouldn't, had he been charged with Neferet, except maybe annoyance at having to wait. Erebus had this tendency to under-estimate everyone around him, Nyx, Neferet, Kalona. He'd never perceive them clearly past his ego. Kalona really liked to think he was different.

He crept softly, soundlessly over her. He owed her pain, or some final slight, the way she'd slighted him, turned him from a god to her slave. He owed her what she'd shown him, and he knew that was how the others saw it too, but there was another debt that needed to be paid to her. She'd only given him what the world had given her. The world owed her something better. A taste of the happiness everyone else took for granted, the security no one really gave a thought to. He'd pay the world's dues then. He kissed her soft, pale lips only chastely, like a promise, seeing if the fairy-tale kiss awakened her.

Awakened was too much to hope for. She did, however; give him a big gasping breath. It was so loud to the silent room, but so soft that, had there been any other sound, it would have been lost. Instead, it was soft and loud, hope for the hopeless.

Not that he knew why it even mattered.

Eventually, he fell asleep, on the soft-carpeted floor beside her bed. He wasn't going to forcibly evict her from the bed, and he knew she'd object to sharing the bed. She wasn't the forgiving type, not by a long shot. She wouldn't trust him enough to want him there, and he wouldn't use the fact that she might never know as an excuse.

He awoke to the sound of pacing. Light footfalls around the house. He shot up, finding the bed empty. Kalona flew after the sounds of the pacing, hearing her pick up speed as well, avoiding him. He changed directions, flying straight into the Tsi Sgili by mistake. Instinctively, his arms encircled her, wings flapping to keep them from falling.

Confusedly, Neferet looked at him in awe. "What are you? She asked, a hand darting out to feel his wing. A blank expression crossed her face as she asked him a second question, "who am I?"


End file.
